Still, we all long for relationships in these harrowing times. And sometimes the people we long to spend these fallow days with are far away or not far at all but kept from us.
My suggestion? Why not make some new “friends” in the company of books? Sure. If you want to pretend you’re hanging out with brand new friends when you’re actually alllllll byyyyyyy yoursssssself why not read a memoir?
Speaking of all by yourself, is this what you currently look like in quarantine?
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| © Frederic Leighton, "The Girl with Golden Hair" |
Wow. That's nice. Because I feel like this:
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| Freaking KREACHER from Harry Potter. |
But I digress.
I’ve made an honest attempt to collect a series of stories from voices that the wider (white, cis, straight) world are not used to hearing from prior to the great expansion of POC and LGBTQ+ storytellers. I am thrilled that the world is being given the grace and platform they long deserved to share their stories globally and with devotion.
Besides, there is nothing more expansive than meeting a new culture, point of view, or a generally “different from me” experience of this life! When that experience is solidified by the empathic connection of “making a new friend” you might not otherwise meet in real life, (especially now because, ya see: social distancing) the experience can be shamanistic in its magic.
Enjoy your new friends.
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Repeated PSA
In all times, but particularly in these times of extraordinary economic struggle for all, I strongly advise you philanthropic and socially-minded readers to support your local communities by purchasing your books locally from local bookstores—many of whom are happy to or ship books to your door, or drop them off personally, at least six feet away from your face.
Buying at local stores keeps money in the local community, supports independent enterprises and also reduces your carbon footprint!
There are a number of sites that make it easier to find and support local independent bookstores in your area.
Chief among them:
• IndieBound.org: Find bookstores and other independent retailers near you. (Says Indiebound: “Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.”)
Other book resources:
• WorldCat: Search for a book title at your local library!
(Right now, it is very helpful to make financial donations to local libraries for those who cannot afford to purchase new or used books, and I strongly encourage you to sign up for the library’s downloadable books programs to avoid unnecessary public outings.)
• Bookshare provides accessible books and periodicals for readers with print disabilities. Everyone, of every ability, deserves the gift of reading!
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I wouldn’t be a good little musical theatre girl without sharing the Alison Bechdel’s darkly comic autobiography Fun Home.
This 2006 piece of work is so far beyond the realm of a “comic,” so deftly wrought in its humor and candor and coming-out-of-the-closet-whilst-coming-of-age-ness, all told with the help of the author’s gothic artwork. The subject material, married with its visual style makes it perfectly suited for the graphic novel format.
The book is the story of a young woman discovering her own burgeoning homosexuality while circling the discoveries surrounding her mysterious father Bruce— a closeted gay man working as a high school English teacher AND a funeral home director. (The Title “FUN HOME” stands for “FUNeral Home—” uh… fun indeed)!
Bechdel ultimately comes out as a butch lesbian herself in the tale, which is at once both heart-wrenching, identifiable, and laugh out loud funny.
The graphic novel inspired the Tony-winning musical adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori. It was nominated for twelve Tony Awards, winning five, including Best Musical, was hailed a “masterpiece” by the New York Times, and has become a gold standard for what is possible in unconventional storytelling across genres.
Samantha Irby writes a blog called bitches gotta eat. And it’s phenomenal. I’m a fan. The day she followed me back on Twitter was a big day. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life is an essay collection from the salty-worded blogger, writer on Hulu’s Shrill, and “one of our country’s most fierce and foulmouthed authors” (Amber Tamblyn, Vulture). Everything Irby produces is sure to make you simultaneously guffaw and choke on your very-real tears. Whether Samantha Irby is talking about how her challenging Midwestern childhood, her hateful cat named Helen Keller, detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes, her absolutely painfully-on-the-money, poo-soaked journey with Chrohn’s Disease ( I relate boo!), sharing cringe-worthy pan-sexual encounters,
Samantha Irby is a master of nimbly taking the piss out of, and facing the brutal emotional realities of, every last skeleton in her closet.
I read both this, and her other collection of essay Meaty, on Audible, read by Irby’s own brilliant voice. Highly recommend.
FYI: Samantha Irby also has a new collection of essays coming out March 31 titled Wow, No Thank You.
3. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi
Who knew how much courage it took just to open a book?
Azar Nafisi's memoir potently chronicles her experiences in what for many people across the globe is an ordinary gathering to be taken (almost) for granted: a Thursday morning women’s book club.
We all know that literature has the ability to transform lives, and that’s exactly what it did for Azar Nafisi and the seven young women she brought together at her home every week for two years before she left Iran in 1997.
While there, the young women would read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature like Pride and Prejudice and Lolita, whose stories ultimately interweave and parallel the reading women’s own lives in Iran during this violent and uncertain time.
While the club opened its members' minds and liberated them to speak freely among themselves, Nafisi's account opens the eyes of us, her reader, revealing to us the secret world of Iranian women that so many of us only guess at fueled by our fears and xenophobia.
These women become your friends, your fellow suffragists, and revolutionaries. But above all, they become your heroes. Reading Lolita in Tehran demonstrates why books truly do transform —including this one.
4. American Born Chinese by Gene Yuen Yang
Since meeting and falling in love with Alec (who is half Chinese), Chinese and Chinese American culture has become a source of infinite joy, wonder, and illumination for me. Not only am I learning some great Chinese children’s songs, but I’m also getting some hella-delish homemade dumplings here in quarantine, and thanks to him, I have been sporting a travel mask long before it was SO COOL YOU COULDN’T EVEN GET A MASK.
But anyway.
American Born Chinese is another offering from the world of graphic novel literature and was the winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album.
Gene Yuen Yang’s story intertwines three (seemingly!) independent stories of classic Chinese folklore, self-acceptance, and the long-felt confusion for “Other” cultures everywhere: assimilation.
These three tales are told through the eyes of Jin Wang, the Chinese folk legend the Monkey King, and an all-American white kid named Danny.
Yang breaks down the specific insecurities of growing up Chinese American, of dealing with issues of identity and self-worth in a systemically prejudiced world, not to mention all the regular horrors that come along with coming of age when you are, in any way, “Other.”
While the three stories seem unrelated, they are later revealed to be connected in a shocking, beautifully rendered, and powerful twist.
Dare I even suggest my own story? [Eep!]
So many of you watched “live” as WHGP developed here on London Still, and indeed, this platform is where I found my own writer’s voice. So much of WHGP is as much a love letter to my father and a chronicling of grief, as it is a love letter to this blog and all of you.
My publisher has this to say:
“A powerful and luminous story of grief and coming-of-age and a beautiful tribute to the relationship between a father and daughter.
Alexandra “Al” Silber seems to have everything: brilliance, beauty, and talent in spades. But when her beloved father dies after a decade-long battle with cancer when she is just a teenager, it feels like the end of everything. Lost in grief, Al and her mother hardly know where to begin with the rest of their lives. Into this grieving house burst Al’s three friends from theatre camp, determined to help out as only drama students know-how—and they’re moving in for the duration. Over the course of that winter, the now five-strong household will do battle with everything Death can throw at them—meddling relatives, merciless bureaucracy, soul-sapping sadness, the endless Tupperware. They will learn (almost) everything about love and will eventually return to the world, altered in different ways by their time in a home by a river. Told with raw passion, candor and wit, White Hot Grief Parade is an ode to the restorative power of family and friendship—and the unbreakable bond, even in death, between father and daughter.”
Feeling like a familiar voice? Let me read it to you on Audible! We can spend 10 or so hours together laughing and choking whilst cry-laughing.
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